WHO Thom Summer, with special guests Atreus, Wanda Maximoff, Stephen Strange, and Kate Danvers (NOTE: all characters are merely shades/likenesses of their played self taken with permission from their players for the purpose of this nonsense)
WHERE Serendipity Hills •
WHEN One o'clock in the morning, Christmas Day! (roll with the funky timeline, guys)
A Serendipity Hills Christmas Carol: PART TWO.
WARNINGS: Heartbreak, weird timelines you'll need to handwave, surprising amounts of shirtlessness
When Thom awoke at the striking of the bell, he sat up immediately, pulse pounding. His home was dark, cold and silent. Snow fell softly against the panes of the window, but the effect made him feel smothered rather than cozy. Tugging his flying squirrel jammies closer to himself, Thom shivered, looking this way and that, but there was no sign of Gretchen, or of any other ghost.
“It was just nonsense,” he said to himself, trying to quiet his fears. “Just humbug.”
Standing, he stretched and headed toward his bedroom. Turning the corner, Thom was shocked to discover that his bedroom had been replaced with… an enchanting forest scene? Bunnies hopped gently over grass and rock. A bear in the distance lumbered between tree trunks. The air was cold and bright with the scent of balsam. And sitting on top of a boulder smiling warmly at him was a young person, a pack of arrows slung over one shoulder and a pack of a different kind shining from their naked stomach and chest (specifically, a six-pack).
“Holy shit you’re hot for a ghost,” Thom observed. “What the fuck is going on? Where’s my bedroom? I don’t want a forest for a bedroom.”
“Greetings, Thom Summer!” said the youth as they hopped off the boulder and landed gracefully. “I am Atreus, the Ghost of Christmas Past!”
“No shit,” Thom observed, still pissed that his bed was suddenly a giant rock in the snow. “Gretchen said you were supposed to show me Christmases where I fucked up or whatever?”
“I am here to show you Christmases that you held dearly in your heart,” Atreus answered, “though you have tried your best to forget them, over the years.”
Thom peered at the ghost. “Isn’t like… traditionally… the Ghost of Christmas past a kid or whatever?”
Atreus flexed a pec. “Are you complaining?”
“Yeah, no.”
“I’m not actually here,” Atreus explained, gesturing to the forest. “Not in this liminal space, and not in Serendipity Hills. Nor am I really Atreus. I am merely a stand-in for a familiar face that you don’t remember right now. Many of us are, due to the magic of this place.”
“Uh yeah, cool.” Thom danced back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Okay can we speed this up? I don’t need the deets. It’s cold as fuck out here. In here? Whatever.”
Atreus smiled again, and nodded. “Of course. Let’s go!” As his hand closed around Thom’s wrist, the world suddenly spun off of its axis and veered into the unknown; it felt like being in a dryer and Thom instantly hated it.
“Spirit, what the fuuuuuu-”
By the time he’d managed to eke out the “f” and “k” from that protest, his feet had found purchase on dusty ground. He instantly recognized the general store from the reservation where he’d grown up, decked out with plastic tinsel and cheap lights. The smell of firewood and gasoline bloomed in his nose, so familiar and specific.
“Do you know where you are?” asked Atreus.
“Yes!” Thom answered, stepping forward through the door - yes, through the door. Apparently ghost rules applied to him here, which was totally rad. The interior of the general store looked as it always did - shabby, clean, and overstuffed with merchandise. Its owner stood behind the counter, a Cree man in his late 60s who wore a cowboy hat in all weather.
“Thom,” said the man, and Thom jumped, his stomach lurching. Could he be seen? “You got the tree working yet?”
“Almost!” called a chipper sounding voice. Thom’s voice - much younger. “Gimme a second, Uncle Thomas!”
The man behind the counter chuckled. “Wouldn’t surprise me if that piece of crap died.”
“No way!” little Thom protested, and as Thom wandered further into the store, there he was: a sixteen or seventeen year old version of himself, buried under a truly tacky light-up tree that wasn’t lighting up. “This thing’s gonna last forever.”
The older Thom’s mouth was doing the thing where it wanted to smile, but wasn’t sure how to. “I worked at this general store for years,” he said softly. “They converted it to a fucking Starbucks in my junior year of college.”
Atreus indicated the elderly man behind the counter. “You called him ‘Uncle Thomas’.”
“We’re not related,” Thom said, waving a hand. “Not by blood. But that shit didn’t matter. I was named for him though. He was a real close friend of the family.”
“Was?” prompted Atreus.
Thom looked away, and made a big point to walk toward the plastic light up tree. “He always threw a big party in the store every Christmas. Invited the whole rez. I helped him set up; I did all the things his arthritis didn’t let him do. It was--” He scowled, suddenly, and gazed at all the varieties of cereal available. “It was one of my favorite things to do when I was back home.”
“Why did you stop going home?” Atreus asked.
Thom shrugged. “I hate flying. It was a big hassle, once I moved out here. Kate suggested we do it but… I don’t know, I blew her off.”
“And yet you didn’t go back even after you and Kate broke up,” Atreus said.
“Damn Atreus, don’t sugar-coat it or anything.” Thom looked back at the Ghost and his scowl deepened. “Why are you showing me images of a dead man and a general store that’s closed? Not really uplifting. I don’t know that I feel compelled to change my ways with all of this.”
“It’s but one scene of three, that I will show you,” intoned Atreus. “Now. Take my hand, and we’ll journey onward.”
Thom eyed Atreus’s hand, remembering the awful spinning feeling. “Yeah, I don’t know that-”
“Not a request,” Atreus answered and grabbed his wrist.
As soon as the world righted itself, Thom smelled cinnamon, oranges. Springs of holly emblazoned every surface. So did alcohol and food. It was a never ending feast, and Thom automatically stepped out of the way of a version of his slightly-younger self as he threw together a cranberry and vodka, heavy on the vodka. Maybe this version of himself was twenty-three? Close out of school, at any rate. And given the surroundings, this was probably…
“The night Kate and I became official,” he moaned in realization. “Ahhh fuck. It was one of Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff’s holiday parties.” Because it could be nothing else. The room was packed to the gills with guests in their holiday finest. People danced together in one room. Children exchanged gifts and played holiday games in another. And everywhere only laughter and joy could be heard ringing through the air.
“Their hospitality was legendary,” Atreus mused. “They did so much for their fellow man, even when it wasn’t easy.”
“Dr. Strange introduced me to Kate,” Thom admitted. “And Wanda was just-- her ability to pull off these kinds of parties was like friggin’ witchcraft.”
“This was before Wanda had the twins,” Atreus said. “Your nephews, Tommy and Billy.”
“A few years, yeah,” Thom agreed, and then frowned. “Wait. Hold up.”
“Yes?”
“The twins are like… teenagers.”
“Yes.”
“I’m like… twenty-seven,” Thom said.
“Yes.” Atreus seemed bored by the math.
“Well, this was four years ago,” Thom said. “So how the fuck are the twins not born now, but in four years are teenagers?”
“Ah look,” Atreus said, gesturing dramatically and walking away, “the lovely Kate.”
And indeed, the baker was lovely, lovely enough to distract Thom from the weird timescheme, glowing in a beautiful red dress made of some shiny material (Thom had no idea what), carrying with her a tray of treats from the bakery she worked at. The younger Thom held her drink for her as she set down the tray, beaming as Wanda came over to give her a hug.
“You look so happy together,” Atreus observed, watching as the younger Thom pulled Kate over to the side of the dancefloor, laughing at something she’d said.
“Yeah,” Thom said softly. His heart suddenly hurt. “We were. We’re totally going to make out in the closet in like, ten minutes. It got heated. We never found her underwear.”
“We don’t have to watch that,” Atreus said quickly, and before Thom could react, grabbed Thom’s wrist. The world lurched under his feet once more before he could do so much as shriek.
The location was immediately familiar to him, for he had only just left it within the last eight hours: the Counting House. This was in the recent past, only two years ago, but Kate was much changed from the smiling vision in red that she had just been. Although she was still lovely, her expression was strained, her posture tight, as she observed Thom working behind his desk.
“But why can’t you take off?” she asked, drumming her fingers on the counter. “It’s your business. You can take off when you want.”
“I’ve got work to do; Christmas is always busy for counting,” Thom answered. “And it’s not like there won’t be another Christmas party next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. This town’s lousy with Christmas parties.”
The lines between Kate’s eyes deepened in frustration. “I don’t care about those parties; I care about this one. It’s really important to me! It’s my first big catering job, and I don’t think it’s such a big ask to have your support for one evening.”
Thom turned away from the scene unfolding: he knew exactly what would happen. Kate would ask, and his younger self would blow her off, and Kate’s feelings would get hurt, and he’d call her dramatic, and they’d break up. He’d gone over the scene again and again in the past few years, for as much as he tried not to think about it. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been so wrapped up in counting and his own comfort that he hadn’t been a thoughtful partner, but it had been the last, because Kate was no doormat.
“Must I watch this?” he asked Atreus, but the Ghost merely gazed at the scene that had careened from “frosty” to “downright Arctic”.
“May you be happy in the life you’ve chosen!” Kate was saying now, and the worst part was that the younger Thom wasn’t even looking at her; he was back to counting, refusing to see how she started to walk away and then hesitated, as if waiting for him to relent, to call her back. But he didn’t, and she proudly walked out the door, slamming it on the way out hard enough that the bell fell off, rolling to a stop by the wall, its merry chime dying.
“C’mon, that’s a little on the nose metaphor-wise, don’t you think?” Thom asked, but he was upset; even his humor couldn’t save him that pain. He and Kate had broken up so stupidly, so needlessly, and it was all his fault. He wasn’t too self-involved not to know that. Thom had had a billion chances to fix this and hadn’t. “Spirit, why show me these things?” he asked now, a fury growing in his heart. “I can’t do shit about them. I can’t make it up to Kate. I can’t bring back Uncle Thomas and I can’t go to another party with Strange and Wanda. Not now. Why show me these awful, wretched things?”
“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said Atreus. “Don’t blame me because you were a jerk!”
“Remove me from this!” Thom yelled, preparing to be whisked away in that awful spinning feeling, “I can’t bear it!”
But when he opened his eyes, he was home, standing in the door of his cold, dark bedroom. There was no forest. There was no Atreus. There was nothing but himself and that awful loneliness that swelled against his heart like a Peep in a microwave.